The Costs of Climate Change

Samantha Kinzig of Longmont, Colorado and her five year-old daughter Isabel take in a closer view of a damaged bridge on Weld County Road 1 on September 13, 2013 in Longmont, Colorado.
(Marc Piscotty
/ Getty)

Jan 6, 2014

From
and

A 22 state blizzard is so last week—a 25 state record deep freeze is what we may be facing here at the top of the year.

As a record chill descends on much of North America this week, you may be motivated to look back at some of the more urgent warnings from folks like Nobel Prize winning former Vice President Al Gore, or warnings from the scientific community about the consequences of global warming.

Climate change skeptics have likened dire warnings to hyperbole and declared them just an excuse for liberals to take control of the U.S. economy or to impose taxes—they even called attempts to set a price for carbon emissions a carbon tax.

A tax sounded worse than catastrophe in the politics of 2010, but ironically one of the more persuasive arguments that climate change is real—persuasive especially to anti-tax conservatives—is how changing, unpredictable and severe weather is increasingly exacting a tax on all aspects of life in America: A luxury tax if your yacht is damaged in an unexpected flood or a regressive tax if you are a low income worker who has to pay more for heat.

About The Takeaway

A fresh alternative in news featuring critical conversations, reports from the field, and listener participation. The Takeaway, hosted by John Hockenberry, provides a breadth and depth of world, national, and regional news coverage that is unprecedented in public media.

WNYC 93.9 FM and AM 820 are New York's flagship public radio
stations, broadcasting the finest programs from NPR, PRI and American Public Media, as well as a wide range of award-winning local
programming. WNYC is a division of
New York Public Radio.